1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to waste ink collection, and more particularly, to a waste ink container which prevents waste ink from being discharged exterior thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
An inkjet printer ejects an ink droplet from a nozzle of a printing head onto a printing medium to form an image. The inkjet printer includes an ink cartridge which stores ink and supplies it to the printing head.
Generally, if the nozzle is clogged by impurities, the amount of ink ejected through the nozzle is diminished. Thus, the inkjet printer performs a nozzle-cleaning operation to remove the impurities from the nozzle.
The nozzle-cleaning operation is performed by discharging the ink of the ink cartridge out of the printing head through the nozzle, which is generally referred to as an “ink-spitting” operation. To capture the ink discharged out of the printing head during the ink-spitting operation, the inkjet printer includes a waste ink container to store the discharged ink (hereinafter, referred to as ‘waste ink’).
The waste ink is discharged through the nozzle in droplets of small size (or volume). As the number of nozzles per unit length increases to improve resolution in dots per inch (DPI) of the inkjet printer, the sizes of the droplets of the waste ink become correspondingly smaller. Consequently, some of the waste ink in the waste ink container is in an aerosol state and diffuses, or is carried with an air flow, within the inkjet printer.
Conventional solutions to the foregoing problems include a waste ink container in which a waste ink droplet is introduced through an opening, but is discharged to the outside through the opening by external force. In this case, the internal part of the inkjet printer may be contaminated by the waste ink droplet. Also, if the waste ink droplet contaminates a printing medium which is being printed, printing quality may be lowered.
Also, in the conventional inkjet printers, a printing head ejects ink in a transverse direction to a direction of gravity. Thus, the waste ink droplet may not pass through the opening and, instead, be introduced outside the waste ink container, thereby raising a possibility of contaminating the internal part of the inkjet printer.